


and the rhyme doesn't even matter

by bee_bro



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Alien Gimmicks Ex Machina, Domestic Fluff, Eldritch Benrey (Half-Life), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Fluff, Gordon's just so full of Love and Caring its unreal, M/M, Not A Game AU, Post-Canon, Roommates, T rating for mild language, Twitch Streamer Benrey, and its actually plot relevant!, berneys failing miserably at trying to be both gay and cool at once, for like 2 seconds and it accidentally activates gordons monster-lover braincells, sfw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27179656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bee_bro/pseuds/bee_bro
Summary: bro what if we were both roommates and you got kind of upset over your twitch chat but i made you risotto and then reassured you that your weird alien eyes were kinda poggers and we were both boys? haha jk............Unless?
Relationships: Benrey/Gordon Freeman
Comments: 62
Kudos: 456





	and the rhyme doesn't even matter

**Author's Note:**

> mild cw for boddy horror in this one but its not written to evict horror bcs gordon's enamoured by benrey's 20 eyes floating in the void and his cool skeleton form
> 
> anyways the idea of soft vibes possessed me so this exists now lol

Gordon putters around with dinner, absently catching every other minute of a conspiracy podcast he listens to only due to how bafflingly impractical some of the theories are. It’s a pleasant Thursday evening as the weather tips into autumn. He’s finished today’s lecture notes, so there’s barely any weight on his shoulders as he stirs the risotto, soaking up the warmth of his kitchen combined with two layers and pajama pants. It’s a bit past normal dinnertime, but Gordon’s sleeping schedule has steadily shifted a few hours forward, Benrey following suit, either to the benefit or detriment of his streaming schedule. He’s hoping to prepare the food and get Benrey to eat, as he has a history of foregoing food when he streams. Gordon’s threatened multiple times, that if Benrey doesn’t take breaks for dinner, he’s going to come into Benrey’s room (in direct view of the camera) and be super embarrassing.

He’s still not sure what he entailed by _embarrassing_ , nor is he sure how Benrey interpreted that, but so far there hasn’t been a need to find out. Gordon tastes the rice (hot, very hot)- if it ever comes to it, he’s planning on sauntering in, ruffling Benrey’s hair or something, and then pretending he doesn’t know what twitch is while leaning real close to the camera until he’s kicked out. Good game plan. He checks the time, about ten more minutes of cooking.

Benrey’s been living at his house for a good three months- holy shit yeah _three whole months,_ Gordon thinks, that’s like- that’s pretty insane. It’s felt both like only a week and pretty much forever. They’d accidentally found Benrey through youtube, when Bubby sent a link to the groupchat and said, _haha thought that insane guy in the metro was Benrey for a moment._ This was quickly followed by four people frantically texting him to confirm that _they’re pretty sure it was indeed Benrey._ A wild goose chase and two talks with the hotdog stand guy later, they’d miraculously been able to track him down in a frat house three hours away from Benrey’s first sighting.

Gordon stirs the rice again and moves to prepare some tea… Benrey had been… pretty well-situated there? He’d been given a beanbag to sleep on and got food in exchange for DJ-ing parties, and so Gordon had expected him to refuse leaving. It’d made sense, really. The people there seemed much more Benrey’s type of crew, loud and pushy- video game music drifting from somewhere inside the place- and so Gordon still occasionally wonders why Benrey abandoned it at the drop of a hat, to first room with Tommy and then with Gordon.

He used to make Benrey leave for the days he had Joshua over, made him go hang out at Tommy’s instead but… Tommy lives with Darnold, and sometimes Tommy’s dad is around and, eventually, it so happened that Joshua met Benrey and wouldn’t leave his goddamn side the entire day. And now, three months in, Joshua’s being brought over tomorrow, and Gordon knows Benrey isn’t leaving.

Gordon turns the heat down and pulls out bowls. He hadn’t heard Benrey come down to the first floor yet (he managed to pressure Black Mesa’s parent company into getting him a better house so that’s pretty pog- _cool)_ so he can safely assume Benrey’s still streaming. Hm, time to be evil and annoying then, Gordon grins as he goes up the stairs, abandoning the podcast to play on in the kitchen as background noise.

Benrey’s room is at the end of the hall and there’s a little _BIOHAZARDOUS_ metal sign nailed to it. They’d recovered it from the side of a road with no idea how it got there and, well, now it exists here with some dinosaur stickers snuck onto it by Joshie.

No matter how evil he’s about to be, corrupting Benrey’s stream and giving the chat something to bully Benrey about for a good hour, Gordon still knocks, at least as a warning. There’s no response. Now that he listens, there’s no sound coming from inside at all. No talking, no game audio, not mashing of controller buttons. When he opens the door, he sees why: the room’s empty.

There’s Benrey’s actual professional desk with weaving LED lights that he’s forgotten to turn off again, casting the rest of the space (with clutter pushed methodically just out of webcam frame) into shifting colors. It reminds Gordon of Benrey’s sweet voice and he abandons the room in search for its missing inhabitant. Joshie’s room, Gordon’s own bedroom, the bathroom, everything’s empty, and Gordon grows more and more vaguely worried with each door he checks, still holding the risotto – now with his prosthetic so it doesn’t burn. He’s about to pull out his phone and deadass call Benrey but he remembers it’s still in the kitchen, rattling away- and that’s when he finally comes across it: the foldable ladder up to the attic isn’t fully put away.

Gordon manages to scale it with the risotto and tea un-displaced and climbs into the dark space, squinting past the sudden lack of light and huffing dust out of his nose upon first inhale. Benrey’s been a fan of the attic for a while, especially after Gordon banned him from standing outside his open bedroom door like a sleep paralysis demon at night. Just a dark silhouette against a darker hallway with the faint glow of two huge eyes- Gordon spots him now, sitting outside on the goddamn roof.

He sighs, more relieved than angry, and heads towards the open window Benrey’s left. The cold draft from outside gets stronger as he approaches, but Gordon’s decked out in a hoodie over another long sleeve so he’s well-prepared even for a rather unexpected and unconventional trip outside.

“Hey dude-” Gordon sticks his head out of the window, “don’t freak out it’s me- please don’t fall-”

Benrey jerks a bit and does something akin to verbal key smash but luckily stays seated, turning to look at Gordon with quizzical eyes- it’s dark enough Gordon is beginning to see their glow more clearly and it has the same effect as turning on a really pleasant nightlight. He smiles and nods at the ledge, “You uh- planning to go back in or- cause I made dinner.”

Benrey doesn’t really respond – verbally that is – but what else is new, and Gordon’s eyes are getting a bit more adjusted to the dark. He can see there’s a tension to Benrey’s shoulders- rather noticeable for a guy who’s usually the consistency of putty or a boneless cat. He wonders if Benrey wants to be left to his own devices but he doesn’t seem to be actively ignoring Gordon or anything so… Gordon makes his mind and sets the risotto and tea outside before carefully climbing out of the window as well. It’s colder out, but pleasantly so after cooking over a steaming pot.

Gordon frowns at how chilled the ledge is under his ass but with the limited space, he ends up having to sit thigh-to-thigh with Benrey, so that’s at least a bit warmer, “Your food, also tea,” he hands the bowl over, not really giving Benrey a choice but to take it. The way he relaxes a bit at the warm bowl in his palms is good enough for Gordon, and he sits back, looking away from Benrey and out at the night. It’s a good neighborhood and the light pollution here is passable enough that you can see stars on a cloudless evening. He wonders if Xen exists somewhere out there as a planet- and if it’s visible at all. He’s thought a lot about Xen in general, an at-the-time part of him finding it a dangerous, hostile place… And yet now, months later, the part of him that became a scientist in order to pursue and study similarly bonkers phenomena mourns his inability to see more of the planet (dimension? space?). He bets there’s a variety of climates and severe differences in flora and fauna and complex ecosystems…

He hears Benrey start to eat by his side, slowly slurping rice over the edge of his bowl and forsaking the spoon entirely. It’s more endearing than anything, glancing over at Benrey who’s got his knees up to his chest, chullo pulled low onto his forehead, slurping away at his dinner with temperature-enforced-patience.

Gordon could easily go inside, he realizes, but that doesn’t even seem accomplishable. Sitting here, in the dark, with only streetlamps and Benrey’s now dimmed eyes, seems like a much more plausible line of action, and Gordon sighs the pleasantly cold air in and out of his lungs again, settling even deeper against the backrest. He should probably grab himself some food too, but that’s whatever, really. He’d prefer the company over the rice now, especially as he notices Benrey unintentionally lean into him, pressing their shoulders and arms together too.

He glances at Benrey again- shit, yeah, he’s just in a t-shirt and not the warmest of sweatpants Gordon owns- great, those are Gordon’s sweatpants, that’s where they went huh- no wonder he’s cold.

“Yo, dude, I know you chew ice cubes and shit but aren’t you uh… cold?”

“Wuh?” Benrey looks up at him, halfway done with the food, then back out at the neighborhood, “Nah, s’cool.”

Gordon doesn’t buy it one bit and reaches over to press his knuckles to Benrey’s exposed arm, “More like s’cold, jeez, you’re freezing.” Gordon vaguely knows there’s a blanket somewhere in the attic but the thought of climbing back in before returning feels incredibly unappealing, and so without much consideration, Gordon sits back up and chucks off his hoodie, “Here,” he takes the mostly empty bowl out of Benrey’s hands and gives him the hoodie, “You’ll catch something.”

“Yeah, like feelings or some shit, gay.” Benrey grits out but accepts the clothes and wriggles into the hoodie, thankfully without slipping off the roof. It’s too big on him, but when Gordon hands him the cup of tea in return, Benrey accepts it without revealing his hands from within the too-long sleeves.

“Big talk for someone who marks their streams with the LGBTQ tag,” Gordon chuckles, “careful I might twitter-cancel you for homophobia.”

Benrey doesn’t laugh and when Gordon looks over, he’s staring. Geesh, it’s hard to cross a line with Benrey since he’s pretty good about back and forth bullying, but there’s no retort and Gordon’s about to apologize when he finally blinks and frowns.

“You watch my streams?”

Gordon does and it’s a bit embarrassing cause he has enough of Benrey in his day as it is but it’s… it’s background noise and calming background noise at that- and sometimes he just has it on in another tab, rambling off- “Well not like _watch_ watch- what?” Benrey’s staring at him harder, “Dude- fine yeah, kind of, what do you want? Jeez, calm down, you’re gonna burst your eye light-bulbs or something."

Benrey immediately looks away, “Shit, sorry.”

Gordon’s already mystified with the reason behind tonight’s rooftop-sitting and general unease, but this just solidifies that something’s wrong.

“Dude, are you like okay? You’re uh, you’re not looking too well.”

“Then don’t fucking look at me,” Benrey counters and continues to stare off to the side where Gordon can’t see his face.

Gordon immediately goes defensive, he’s already aware he stares at Benrey too much (Thank you to dear Bubby and Tommy for relentlessly pointing it out, their efforts do not go to waste in making him self conscious about it) “What- I- no?? Fuck that, I’m gonna look at you so hard you’re gonna have to look back at me to make me stop!”

This seems to genuinely get to Benrey, who hunches his shoulders and continues to look away, “Fuck that, boo, stop it.”

“Oh I am _looking!”_

“ _Stooop.”_

“I am still looking _so much!”_ Gordon’s starting to smile, pretty certain they’re doing a bit now-

But then, for a moment, for just that split hair of a second, Benrey looks back. He looks back at Gordon without turning his head, because, just for a moment, Benrey is eyes. Benrey is eyes and eyes and eyes and they all look back at Gordon and he swears, even with the shock of it, and with the lack of any other features, he can tell they are startled, as startled as he is if not more at the fact this happened.

And then it’s gone.

“Dude…”

“Shit- fuck-” Benrey hunches over more, “Buh, sorry I bhhhhhhhh sorry.”

Gordon deflates a bit and takes the chance to reach over and put his left hand on Benrey’s shoulder lightly, “Dude, that was uh, a bit cool, hey, it’s okay, yo, look at me, for real.”

Benrey finally turns, a hand clasped over his mouth in what Gordon’s learned to mean he’s trying to swallow back Sweet Voice. His eyes glow all the more now and Gordon tries to smile in a way that’s reassuring for whatever.. is going on, and gently reaches over to get Benrey’s wrist, lower his hand from his mouth where it’s digging white spots into his skin.

“I’m uh- I’m not sure what’s going on but I’m not mad at you or anything, okay? What’s up?”

Benrey goes to answer but there’s suddenly light bubbles spilling out of his mouth, getting in the way of words, all sorts of calm colors, too disjointed to read (jeez, Gordon realizes he’s learned most of the patterns at this point), and Benrey’s trying to say words through it but he keeps getting interrupted and Gordon weaves his fingers with Benrey’s hand that he’d lowered as he waits and watches, the Sweet Voice illuminating their faces and the roof and drifting into the sky-

The bits of words Benrey manages to get out are disjointed and jumbled, but sometimes Benrey speaks like that just … in general, so Gordon’s got good enough at piecing things together and- oh…

He squeezes Benrey’s hand, unable to fight down a huge, absolutely sappy smile, “Dude, Benrey, I’m not scared of you.”

“Wuh-”

It’s true. It’s true. He’s stopped being scared of Benrey at some point within the first week. It was a weird feeling, seeing Benrey grow in height for a split second, to reach the top shelf for cereal one morning, and not so much as flinching but actually huffing a little laugh at it. He’d started out wary of everything Benrey did, at every little display of severe yet hidden alien features. But it’s been months, and he’d spent too many hours falling asleep against Benrey on the couch with some shlocky movie on the screen, too many hours batting his hands out of cookie batter and too many hours holding both his and Joshie’s hand in the mall because both had the same track record of wandering off- too many hours existing with him to find his weird little alien gimmicks – even the more Lovecraftian ones – to be _threatening._ All the more, he’d stopped seeing _Benrey_ as threatening at all.

“I don’t find you scary, dude,” Gordon moves his hand up to hold Benrey’s shoulder, “I know you got some weird shit going on but I- you’re just my friend Benrey, yknow?”

Benrey’s eyes are goddamn dinner plates at this point, and he finally spits out the last of Sweet Voice, wiping his mouth, “Friend Benrey?”

Gordon laughs, moving to wipe uncalled for moisture in his eyes, displacing his glasses, “Yeah, friend Benrey, I know I don’t say it a lot but yeah, you’re my friend, dude-” shit that was too sappy- “Can you do that eye thing on demand or is it like an accidental thing?”

Benrey flattens his mouth like he’s chewing a lemon, cringing away a bit, “Alien shit scary bro, don’t wanna scare my fave DILF bro.”

Gordon snorts, “Your DILF is also a licensed scientist. Headcrabs were scary cause they were out to kill me, not cause they were aliens,” He grins and then reaches up to yank Benrey’s hat down onto his eyes because it’s hard to be too sincere for too long without doing something dumb, “And I uh, I trust you, so you ain’t scary.”

Benrey doesn’t fuss about it and instead pauses, “You sure?”

“Yeah, I wanna see.”

For a moment Benrey doesn’t do anything, but his hand finds Gordon’s and he kind of holds on a bit and Gordon lets him, smiling. And then Benrey stops looking like an approximation of human, morphing into something _else,_ something a bit more formless and a bit bigger and with much _much_ more eyes, separated by the void that occasionally flashes with a pink grid- the eyes, they’re like Benrey’s though, the same eyes, and this is still Benrey and Gordon stares back with a growing grin, that same elation of _buckwild fucking shit_ coming back full force and making him giddy.

“Damn, that’s- that’s so cool,” he looks down to where Benrey’s still got his hand, and sees it’s no longer a normal hand, but- void- and he turns it over in his palm, bringing it up to his face, “This is so fucking _cool,_ dude, you can’t just be able to send yourself to the shadow realm and not use it for punchlines more, what the fuck,” he’s examining Benrey’s hand, turning it over in his own and feeling the weird tingly sensation of touching it, like the sensory equivalent of how soda tastes, “Ugh you’d make Lovecraft shit his pants and die this is uh- yeah fine I’ll say it- this is poggers.”

He finally looks past Benrey’s hands to his eyes and they’re all staring at Gordon with a certain intensity, all glowing, and then they part where Benrey’s face would usually be, and a skull emerges from the darkness, several neck spines coming after it, and Gordon recognizes it as the same form Benrey’d taken at Black Mesa. “Seriously? You got a skeleton inside the void blob form?” He snickers, “Why’s this form need a skeleton, you’re practically space.”

He reaches up to touch the bones though, mumbling, _may I?_ There’s a nod and Gordon runs a thumb down the skull’s cheekbone. He can’t say he knows what dry human bone feels like, but he’s pretty sure this is it.

“Heh, kinda wild, I’m kind of a skeleton too, under all the extra shit,” Gordon snorts, “You got more bones than me though,” he holds his prosthetic hand up, “Thanks for showing me, this is really fun.”

The eyes blink at him, and then the void hand reaches down to pick up his own, bringing it up to the skull, and pressing it against the sharp teeth- _a kiss_ Gordon’s mind supplies.

It makes his face burn, even though he’s here looking at something another might find deeply morbid. Lost in the weird giddy flutter of his chest, he yanks his hand away to press to his face, trying to will the redness away-

The motion makes Benrey sway back a bit, and the eyes are suddenly dodging everywhere but looking at him, and somehow the skull – while bone – manages to look fucking _regretful,_ and Gordon realizes how bad his reaction must’ve looked like from the side- the fact Benrey, with a record of getting wildly flustered about things like hugs, had in some weird way kissed Gordon’s hand is already so fucking- Gordon doesn’t know what.

_Riveting._ His brain says that fact is _riveting_ and Gordon can’t justify the word but also can’t deny it- his heart is going a mile a minute and he thinks fuck it, and reaches to the skull, cupping its sharp features, and right before kissing the teeth, chickens out and kisses the forehead.

There’s an instantaneous whoosh of air and some kind of shift in the air and when Gordon opens his eyes, Benrey looks human-ish again, and he’s kissing a normal, skin-covered forehead, black hair tickling his nose.

When he leans back, Benrey’s watching him with owlish eyes, chullo gone and clasped tightly in his hands. More Sweet Voice slips out, and this variation Gordon’s only seen a number of times: when he’d hugged Benrey for the first time ever, when he’d bought the gaming desk as a surprise, when he’d offered to brush Benrey’s hair, let Benrey pick his Official Birthday and made him his favorite food that morning-

He’s not sure what it could rhyme with but he’s pretty sure he knows the sentiment it’s connected to.

He grins, heart beating out of his chest and making him feel on the verge of something insane- and quite literally on the verge of falling off the roof.

“Yo so that- i- uh- bbb?” he can tell there’s nothing coherent going on inside Benrey’s head right now and Gordon is close to being the same way. Benrey’s face is kind of cold but his hair’s nice to the touch, and Gordon knows all this, knows all this from three months of sitting on the couch together and teaching Benrey how to wash his hair and- yeah. This isn’t new but it’s _new._

“You don’t be finding my uh-” and Benrey blinks at him with about five eyes for a second and then they’re gone, “like, bad?”

Gordon feels like laughing, the moment strangely euphoric – maybe it’s the roof and the cold air and the fear of falling and the _feeling_ of falling and the wild rate of his heart – and he squishes Benrey’s face a bit (he’s always wanted to do that) and grins, “Nah, I find it cute-”

“YOU WHUH?”

“ _I meant like cool- shut up,”_ Gordon almost shouts, “Don’t say anything- I find it cool. It’s like your Sweet Voice and your eyes-”

“Whuts with eyes?”

“They glow, dude…”

“Nah they don’t,” Benrey frowns, defensive and petulant and Gordon can only laugh, as he looks into undeniably glowing, wide eyes. He notes Benrey’s also furiously blushing and that’s kind of funny if Gordon wasn’t well aware his own face was burning too.

“Why would I lie to you about your own eyes glowing, dumbass?”

Benrey shrugs, the pinnacle of nonchalant correctness, “Cause like Tommy’s, my eyes only glow when I’m looking at something nice, one time he made a joke about how our eyes light up literally-”

By the time Benrey’s brain catches up to what he’d just said, Gordon’s already laughing full-force, wiping tears off his face, having let go of Benrey and rocking back a bit-

He knocks the risotto bowl off the roof- the sound of it shattering startles him and Gordon jerks to the side in surprise- it sets his balance off and he’s tipping back too far-

Benrey’s hand shoots out, fisting into Gordon’s shirt at the chest and holds him- for Benrey’s smaller height, Gordon wouldn’t bet on him effectively keeping Gordon from falling, but there they are. There they are. Benrey pulls him back, and both are quiet, breathing a bit too heavy, Benrey still holding onto his shirt.

Gordon clears his throat, a whole different kind of adrenaline in his blood now, “Let’s… uh let’s go inside?”

Benrey looks around a bit and then nods and Gordon notes his eyes have almost stopped glowing.

They bring the surviving tea cup inside, Gordon climbing into the window first and landing on the hardwood of the attic floor. He turns around to wait for Benrey, but Benrey pauses on the windowsill, crouching, and Gordon is once more looking into a pair of glowing eyes- and now he can’t help but smile at it, overpowered by the desire to hug him or something, “What’s up?”

“I-D-K bro I- buh…”

“Take your time,” Gordon sips the tea before remembering it’s technically Benrey’s and kind of cold but whatever.

Benrey’s eyes glow a bit harder and holy shit this fucking changes everything, Gordon thinks and tries not to grin in to the tea. It’s game-changing to have confirmation when it comes to how sincere Benrey can be- which is usually hidden under at least three layers of gamer lingo, memes, and sarcasm. And yet, betrayed by his dumb lightbulb gaze.

Benrey remains crouching, but shoves his hat back onto his head, “You uh- no like you sure yeah?”

Gordon digs around in the conversation they had about what Benrey means, “That I… that I don’t find you scary?”

“Yuh… Kinda shitty, I eat your food and live house and you…. Mm..”

He seems genuinely bothered by this and Gordon sobers up a little, still smiling, “Nah, Benrey, I like your company- don’t let it get to your head,” Gordon snorts quietly, “Yeah, I knew you were uh, an alien? A god? Still not sure, but I knew you were something different when I, uh, invited you to stay so… It’s not like you ever lied to me about it,” he remembers Black Mesa momentarily and cringes, “Right off the bat actually, told me you weren’t human and I didn’t make anything of it.”

“Heh, probably should’ve, fail human brain top ten lag momence.”

“Pff, yeah, but uh, nah, you can do all kinds of weird shit as long as it’s not too morbid around Joshie, cause I don’t want him telling others at school his dad lives with a skeleton or something,” Gordon sets the cup of tea on a nearby box, “I thought you were pretty comfortable in your bullshit, did something happen on stream?”

Benrey looks away for a moment, “Feetman mind-reading ability? What powerup, cheating… Uh. Chat said I was scary, but like, big joke moment, big funny, but they said damn my roommate must get so freaked out by my shit so like.”

“The hell did you do on stream?”

Benrey looks back at him, “Nuthin, just was.”

“Damn, bro that sucks, tell them to fuck off later, I like living with you- don’t call me gay- I like living with you so like, sucks for them. They’re probably jealous they don’t get a cool roommate like me they can pester and play multiplayer with.” Gordon chuckles, crossing his arms, winking at Benrey to punctuate his point, mentally fuming at Benrey’s chat being a little shit- he should talk to a mod.

Benrey’s quiet for a moment, before, with the exact same intonation as when he’d first asked Gordon, he says, “Hug?”

It catches Gordon a bit off guard and he can only spread his arms and step closer to the window, a situation similar from long ago flashing through his head, “Come on, I’ll catch you.”

And just like at Black Mesa, Benrey jumps, and just like the first time he mindlessly fell into Gordon’s arms, Gordon catches him. Gordon catches him- but unlike the first time this happened, he doesn’t set Benrey down immediately, holding him up and pressing him close, feeling Benrey’s hands grapple onto his shirt and shoulders, eyes like headlights where they peak at him from under the chullo, “Bro, whah?”

“Thanks for telling me what was wrong, kay? You can talk to me about uh, stuff. Thanks for saving my life on the roof there by the way.”

“Din’t save your life, jus like, a trip to the hospital.”

Gordon finally sets him down and goes to hug him a bit more normally, “Still,” resting his chin on Benrey’s head, “But yeah, I like when you do weird shit, it’s pretty cool. You don’t freak me out.”

“You said to fuck off from watchin ya sleep.”

“That’s cause it’s weird.” He sighs, “Why do you do it even? My weird sleeping positions can’t be that interesting.”

Benrey’s quiet for a moment, face hidden in Gordon’s shoulder. “I get bad dreams the military killed you.”

Gordon has. Has nothing to say for a moment, staring at the still open window, the stars outside, feeling the cold draft against his exposed ankles, remembering Benrey’s barely comprehensible apology for the whole arm incident. Their communication had been a bit more shaky back then, Benrey even less willing to compromise and speak unless threatened, and Gordon too expectant of coherency and impatient as all hell.

“Dude you’re gonna break my ribcage.”

Gordon realizes he’s been squeezing Benrey and loosens his hold, “Sorry. I- Benrey…”

“Don’t say it like that, what the fuck. Softass.”

Gordon rests his cheek on Benrey’s head, “I didn’t know that’s why you did it, I’m sorry.”

“Gotta check all my homies are still alive, bro.”

“How often does it happen?”

Benrey doesn’t answer and that’s… that’s telling enough.

“Benrey…” Gordon detangles a bit, holding Benrey’s shoulders, “Shit, dude, that… I… Okay you can check on me but holy shit do not stand in the hallway and stare at me for half an hour, I said you weren’t scary, but waking up and not knowing _who_ is standing outside of my room _is_.”

“Loser sleepes with an open door.”

“I have a son… You know he gets nightmares.”

“Oh so he gets nightmares and gets to sleep in your bed and your f-friend Benrey gets nightmares and you ban him? Big fail…”

Gordon smiles and relishes in the glow of Benrey’s eyes his mind won’t shut up about, “Before just now I didn’t know you had nightmares.”

“You’ll let me sleep in your bed now?”

Gordon sighs, knowing Benrey’s only half-joking, but he’s not the best sleeper either – as seen by the fact he’s woken up enough times mid-sleep to catch Benrey watching over him- _shit that’s what he’s been doing huh, watching over you, you idiot._

Benrey catches onto the fact Gordon’s _actually thinking_ about it and brightens up, “Oh? For real considering it?”

They’re still standing there in a loose hug and Gordon looks at Benrey in his oversized ghostbusters hoodie and sweatpants, eyes alight and smug and also dilated, in the attic of a house that wouldn’t feel the same without Benrey’s constant presence somewhere in Gordon’s periphery, risotto bowl lying outside in shards from a dinner Gordon absent-mindedly cooked for two without even asking, and tomorrow they’re driving out to pick up Joshie and probably take him someplace fun, and Joshie will comfortably hold Benrey’s hand and Benrey will talk to him without an ounce of sarcasm or irony, genuinely interested in the nonsense the kid has to say- but before that, Gordon will have to go to sleep with the knowledge that no good things wait for him in his dreams- and now with the awareness Benrey’s going to sleep a wall over with the same problem…And either way, he can’t get enough of touching Benrey, all the time, sitting side-by-side on the couch, bumping hips in the kitchen, shoving each other around when playing games, hugging, hugging him, getting hugged. Gordon smiles, nose prickly with the realization he’s not only comfortable with Benrey’s presence but starved for more of it, even in close quarters.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah? Wait, like real?”

“Yeah,” Gordon can’t help but giggle, “Like real.”

Benrey genuinely _hoots_ and pumps his fist in the air, before grinning back with sharp, familiar, teeth, and Gordon feels his heartbeat pick up at the sight of them- Benrey mellows down a bit, “That’s pretty valid of you…” And Benrey’s smile is disarming- Benrey is disarming. Has been for so long, making Gordon wheeze in the middle of hell, clawing out of Black Mesa’s ruins and making Gordon lose at Mario Kart by tickling him- and beginning to smile in the mornings when Gordon started making him coffee without question. He’s always been disarming but it’s gotten worse, and now when Benrey grins with a display of teeth that could kill, Gordon really only wants to kiss him.

_Oh..._

Gordon tries to swallow down the startling slap of panic his brain dishes out at the sentiment, and panics, “Yo, you know how you tag your streams?”

Benrey almost growls, “This again? Shut up, you tag yours with that too…” He looks off to the side, genuinely looking braced for some kind of chagrin.

Gordon doesn’t want to like… out himself as horribly interested in the idea of Benrey holding his hand more often or like cuddling openly without excuses or … like.. .even maybe a kiss… He needs to check, needs to make sure Benrey is actually available at all- “Is it like ironic?”

Benrey bristles again, “Fuck that, you know I’m gay.”

Gordon blanks a bit at the loud delivery of that and the now averted gaze.

“Uh- I didn’t actually. I didn’t know.”

“Feetman, have you not heard a single joke I’ve ever made? You have the fucking opposite of gaydar, gay-blindness. Jesus. Maybe I’ll cancel _you_ for home of phobia. This house sucks.”

“ _Benrey_ shut up jesus fuck, I’m bi.”

“No way- _shit, wait-_ ” Benrey stares at him, slightly panicked- no, severely panicked, “Lol, sorry I’ve been like hitting on you then, straight people usually don’t uh- don’t notice.”

“You’ve been hitting on me?”

“You’re not helping your case of gay-blindless, Feetman- _shit and I’ve kissed you…”_

_“_ No you _haven’t,”_ Gordon rakes his mind for when the fuck they’d kissed, he’s sure he would’ve remembered. There’s been a few close calls- in his opinion, when the thought had crossed his mind and he’d written it off as just weird impulses- fucking idiot.

Benrey looks at him like the equivalent of that huge wet-eyed emoji, “Bro in Black Mesa, in the powerade…”

“Wh- _no?_ That was a very bad peck on the cheek at _most_.”

“Well now I’m sad you discredited my super cool epic kiss… Look you made me sad.” Benrey steps away a bit and crosses his arms, and frowning at Gordon, “Watcha gonna do now huh? Going around disrespecting the bravest thing in my fucking miserable life?”

“You survived some wildass shit you can’t tell me giving me a peck was the bravest thing in your life- you can’t.”

“Well, it was, so fuck off.”

Gordon’s chest is gonna fucking suffocate with the amount of whatever butterflies are crawling around in it, and honestly, he can clown Benrey all day about this, yet here he is, still standing around trying to figure out how to ask if maybe Benrey would want to kiss- like unironically- god even thinking about it is gonna send him into some kind of system shut-down- yeah fuck this, Benrey was right, it’s terrifying.

He clears his throat, “Jeez, sorry, didn’t know it was such a touchy subject.”

“Yeah, look, now we’re fighting again. Buh.”

Gordon’s been kneading his sleeves with anxiety for a while now but finally blurts it out, “You wanna, like, kiss about it?”

Benrey freezes up, “Dude, bad joke.”

“Yeah, bad joke cause it isn’t one. I’m serious.”

There’s a moment Gordon ready to find out he’s interpreted four months since meeting Benrey all wrong, but also Benrey’s eyes have literally never been more painfully bright to look at so there’s a slim fucking chance-

“No cap, kissey for friend Benrey?”

Gordon snorts once- and then again harder when Benrey puts his fingers together in front of his chest, pouting his lip. It’s difficult not to laugh when there’s so much goddamn pent-up jitteriness in his bones but he manages to fight it for a bit more, grinning through his words, “Yeah but like… Like boyfriend Benrey?”

“Wh _au?_ Dude…”

“Is… is that a yes?” Gordon kinda squints against Benrey’s fucking flashlight eyes at this point- jesus christ, how does Darnold deal with Tommy if he does this too.

“Hrrm…Only if not jokey…Only if not Look At Gay Idiot Getting Baited Fail Comp 2018 video…”

“I promise this is only for Top Ten Epic Queer Moments,” Gordon chuckles and Benrey’s already walking over to him with absolutely dead-set intent and Gordon catches him, having to take a step back with the speed of his stride, and immediately catches Benrey’s face in his palms like before- and this time doesn’t go full chicken and kisses Benrey where he’d meant to all along.

Benrey’s stupid lips are chapped and he’s still vaguely cold and it makes Gordon’s head spin with three months of building adoration for his, _yeah_ _fine_ : cute, lovable and absolutely poggers roommate. He’s sure barely anyone else would share the sentiment, let alone finally get the guts to kiss Benrey only after getting an eyeful of mild eldritch horror and then almost falling off the roof- but no, this is theirs, this is his and this is Benrey’s and this is a very big moment happening in a tiny attic in pajamas, hands everywhere, on each other’s faces, shoulders, hips, and Benrey sneaks his cold fucking ice-cube fingers under Gordon’s shirt with the express purpose of tickling him, and Gordon really tries to keep kissing even as he involuntarily cringes away and has to laugh-

They break apart, Benrey looking smug as hell but his eyes are bright and awake and he’s definitely burning with a blush, Gordon’s hairband around his wrist where he’d stolen it from Gordon’s hair just now, and Gordon almost can’t get enough breath, but he kisses Benrey again, has to duck down a bit to do it, and notes how if Benrey had wanted, he could’ve absolutely made himself taller to fucking assist- Gordon makes his conclusions about Benrey’s voluntary short height and crowds him a little bit, framing his face again and leaning in more, and then he’s tasting all sorts of jumbled flavors and has to lean back, only to find that Benrey’s frantically trying to wipe Sweet Voice off his mouth mid-laughter. Gordon can’t help but wheeze at it too, going in to kiss him again, not caring for the colors, not caring for what they rhyme with and what they mean, because Benrey’s attempt at suppressing elated, mildly evil giggles, and his hands in Gordon’s hair, and how he won’t stop kissing back, is telling enough.

**Author's Note:**

> welp thanks for reading!   
> if you have gay things you wanna scream at me you can find me on tumblr [@22ratonthestreet](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/22ratonthestreet) where i also draw some other hlvrai things so... uh...yeah


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